Hugh Laurie Q&A - Radio Times, February 2006

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Hugh Laurie Q&A - Radio Times, February 2006

Jenny Eden talked to the House star soon after his portrayal of the misanthropic medic was rewarded at the Golden Globe TV awards.

JE: How does it feel to have a Golden Globe for best actor and a big US hit on your hands?

HL: I'm shocked. I never thought House would last. I didn't consider that I was signing up to a long-running show. Now I'm paying the price for not reading the small print.

So what is the price you're paying?

I miss my family. My wife and kids are back in London. I see them on a video screen every day, but it's tragic really. The hours I work are like permanent jet lag. It's 18-hour days. Today we had lunch at 7pm.

Those are silly hours. Isn't there a temptation to shout "Cut! It's only telly"?

In the old days of Columbo, TV looked quite different to films, but now people expect a one-hour movie, and that's what we're trying to give them. It requires a huge amount of care and attention. And money, and effort, and time.

Has doing the American accent got any easier?

I struggle every single day. It's as hard today as it was yesterday, as it was the day before, which is a bit of a disappointment, to be honest.

Couldn't you have made House British?

I curse myself sometimes and then I curse "them", because I think this is so stupid: why didn't they get an American actor in?

It would have made their lives so much easier, because they wouldn't have someone sulking and struggling so hard. But I'm in it now and there's nothing I can do, unless in the third season House gets hit on the head and wakes up English, which is my plan.

I don't know if there is a neurological condition like that, but I'm sure they could find one if they look hard enough.

Your dad was a doctor. What would he have thought of House?

He couldn't have been more different to House. He was a hero to me. A very gentle man who would take any amount of time with patients.

You never thought about going into medicine?

I think I was too lazy to be a doctor. I do feel bad that now I'm pretending to do what my dad did and getting paid more for it than he ever did.

Would you ever take the kind of abuse from a doctor that House dishes out to his patients?

If my life was hanging by a thread, I'd want to go to the good doctor rather than the kind doctor. Kindness is a lovely thing, but when lives are at stake, you want the best, and House is the best.

One final question: after years of playing British toffs, have you gone all Hollywood on us?

I haven't got a Hollywood existence. I spend every day in a studio, then go home to bed. I go from day to day expecting to be fired - then I'll be back to Britain with my tail between my legs before you know it.

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